Pokies: Protect smaller clubs

By Shaun Inguanzo
PROTECTION for community clubs is needed when the State Government finalises details on how venues will bid for poker machine licences from 2012, the Noble Park Football Social Club says.
Last week, Premier John Brumby announced that the duopoly on the state’s poker machine licences, bar Crown Casino, held by Tattersall’s and Tabcorp would be broken at the end of the current agreement in 2012.
Mr Brumby revealed that venues could then bid for poker machines and operate them.
But he said it was likely there would be a bidding process for venues to acquire the state’s 55,000 poker machines – a figure which will be split down the middle between hotels and community clubs.
One of Greater Dandenong’s largest community clubs with poker machines, the Noble Park Football Social Club, this week said details were sketchy.
But president Jim Laidlaw told Star that a criterion for bidding on pokies should ensure that community clubs weren’t competing with large corporations solely on a monetary basis.
“Obviously between hotels and clubs the difference is vast, and one would assume that clubs would come under a different scheme than hotels,” he said.
“I would hope (the State Government) takes into account that clubs like ours are community clubs where basically the entire surplus is going back into the community.”
Mr Laidlaw said the announcement by Mr Brumby was not unexpected, but now it was time for more details on what the future holds for community clubs that currently have pokies.
“Until detailed plans are formulated, it’s impossible to say what effect these changes would have on our club,” he said.
Mr Laidlaw did say that operating poker machines would be ‘no problem’ for Noble Park Football Social Club.